La presente investigación modela el sistema BRT Metropolitano mediante el uso del software TransCAD. Para la adecuada construcción de la matriz origen destino se recopilan datos de embarque y desembarque en los diferentes paraderos del sistema. Es por ello, que se calcula la muestra de encuestas a través de datos proporcionados por Protransporte, la empresa que administra el Metropolitano. En la información proporcionada se excluyeron días atípicos donde se obtuvo 1032 encuestas con una confiabilidad de 95% y un error de 4.2%. Luego, se usa el factor de expansión para obtener la situación actual con un total de 53,776 usuarios que viajan en la hora más crítica de la tarde de 6 a 7pm. Así mismo, se inserta la matriz OD para la asignación de viajes mediante el método de equilibrio de usuarios estocástico (SUE); en el cual, se obtiene una primera calibración de la situación actual. Posteriormente, se propone el escenario más óptimo a partir del cálculo de las cargas máximas con el uso de hojas de cálculo. Además, se obtienen nuevos parámetros como frecuencias, cantidades de buses, tiempo de viaje total, etc. Finalmente, se realiza la comparación de los resultados del escenario propuesto y actual donde se observan beneficios para el operador y los usuarios. Debido a que, la propuesta cuenta con un ahorro de 7,154.26 minutos de tiempo de viaje total por hora, la operación del sistema con quince buses menos y un índice de pasajeros por kilómetro recorrido (IPK) de cinco puntos adicionales al actual. / The present investigation models the BRT Metropolitano system through the use of TransCAD software. For the proper construction of the destination origin matrix, embarkation and disembarkation data must be collected in the different stops of the system. That is why the sample of surveys is calculated through data provided by Protransporte, the company that manages the Metropolitano. In the information provided, atypical days were excluded where 1,032 surveys were obtained with a 95% reliability and an error of 4.2%. Then, the expansion factor is used to obtain the current situation with a total of 53,776 users traveling in the most critical time of the afternoon from 6 to 7pm. Likewise, the OD matrix is inserted as a previous step to the travel assignment using the stochastic user equilibrium method (SUE), in which a first calibration of the current situation will be obtained. Subsequently, the most optimal scenario is proposed based on the calculation of the maximum loads with the use of spreadsheets. In addition, new parameters such as frequencies, bus numbers, total travel time, and various others are obtained. Finally, the results of the proposed scenario and the current one were compared, where benefits for the operator and the users of the system are observed. Since the proposal has a saving of 7,154.26 minutes of total travel time per hour, the operation of the system with fifteen fewer buses and a passenger index per kilometer traveled (IPK) five points more than the current one. / Tesis

The father in Crossing the River by Caryl Phillips is a character burdened by guilt due to his implication in his children’s enslavement. He can be considered a supernatural being since his character transcends time. He is also connected to a supernatural essence called the “many-tongued chorus” that can be seen to represent the people of the African diaspora. The father is desperately trying to communicate with his children, and to the people of the African diaspora, but to no avail. He can, however, be interpreted as having a healing function. This essay explores this function. It analyzes how the father tries to heal the people of the African diaspora’s loss of ‘home’ and identity by looking at what he conveys in the prologue and the epilogue. The concepts of displacement, colonized minds, and roots and routes within postcolonialism is used for this purpose.

The challenges of the Great Recession of 2008 have impacted the field of education to the point that many intern programs have ceased to exist. Alternative (or Intern) teacher preparation programs have also become an increasingly popular topic, especially since the term "highly qualified teachers" will soon be up for re-assessment. Concerns over the quality of teacher preparation programs have yet to yield conclusive results and seems to be an unending debate. This study has provided a glimpse into two intern programs and the process by which these programs have evolved. There were 6 major themes that emerged out of this study: Communication & Collaboration, Support, Financial Influences, Individual Dynamics, Beyond Curriculum and How Programs have Evolved to Remain Current. This study described participant perspectives that relate only not how these two intern programs survived during the challenging economic crisis, but how they have managed to thrive. Efforts were made by each program to utilize low intern enrollment to their benefit by providing added supports and individualized programming to better meet the needs of interns/teachers in training. Three intern participants, two Intern program directors and four intern program instructors have provided their perceptions on their programs to illustrate a clearer picture of how their respective intern programs have evolved to remain current in this challenging economically turbulent time.

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Vår framtid står inför stora utmaningar som behöver lösas för att vår vidare existens ska kunna fortsätta. Mänsklig påverkning på jorden har uppnått globala mått på grund av vårt sätt att leva och utnyttja naturresurser utan större konsekvenstänkande. Människans strävan efter att leva alltmer bekvämt och rikt har lett till urbanisering och teknisk progress som har skapat resursslukande hjälpmedel som transport. Stadsplaneringen har under den senaste delen av modern historia tagit en ny vändning och städerna har blivit alltmer anpassade efter våra fordon, vilket påverkar den sociala, ekonomiska och ekologiska hållbarheten negativt. Detta examensarbete syftar till att med hjälp av tidigare forskning hitta lösningar som skulle kunna omvandla bilanpassade städer till mer promenad- och cykelvänliga städer. Arbetet tillämpas i staden Borlänge som ligger i Dalarna och har präglats starkt av bilismens utveckling. Det viktiga med arbetet är att lyfta fram lösningar som kan användas även i andra städer oavsett geografisk placering eller storlek. Den granskade litteraturen har skapat ett detaljerat och övergripande underlag för att kunna möjliggöra vidare arbete med framtagning av åtgärder som kan lösa studiens syfte. Litteraturen har valts ut efter relevans för ämnet samhällsplanering för att kunna redovisa liknande inriktning på kunskaper vilket har gjort texten mer sammanhängande. Den största delen av litteraturen är vetenskapliga artiklar och böcker. Arbetet har utfört med hjälp av platsinventering som hjälpte till att upptäcka olika egenskaper i den befintliga miljön och val av två gång- och cykelstråk för framtagning av gestaltningsförslag. Tidigare forskning har skapat grund för de åtgärder som har presenterats i form av gestaltningsförslag. / Our immediate future faces major challenges that need to be solved to continue our existence. Human impact on the Earth has reached global proportions due to our way of living and exploiting natural resources without much consequence. The human quest to live more comfortably and abundantly has led to urbanization and technological progress that has created resource-consuming tools such as transport. In the last part of modern history, urban planning has taken a new turn and cities have become increasingly adapted to our vehicles, negatively affecting social, economic, and ecological sustainability. This thesis aims to use previous research to find solutions that could transform car-adapted cities into more walking and cycling-friendly cities. The work is applied in the city of Borlänge, which is in Dalarna and has been strongly characterized by the development of automobilism. The importance of the work is to highlight solutions that can also be used in other cities regardless of geographical location or size. The reviewed literature has created a detailed and comprehensive basis to enable further work with the development of measures that can solve the purpose of the study. The literature has been selected according to relevance to the subject of urban planning to present a similar focus of knowledge, which has made the text more coherent. Most of the literature is scientific articles and books. The work has been carried out with the help of a place inventory that helped to discover various characteristics of the existing environment and the selection of two pedestrian and bicycle paths for the development of design proposals. Previous research has provided the basis for the measures presented in the form of design proposals.

This dissertation builds and theorizes a corpus of the many feitiços, fetissos, fetiches, and fetishes that, with the advent of Iberian traders along the Atlantic coastlines, materialized and circulated in early modern West Africa before the institution of what we now refer to, in the singular, as “the fetish.” It contends that the techniques and forms that elicited the accusation of fetishes were devised in response to new and varied pressures of the highly dynamic trading contexts of early modern coastal Guinea: to make meaning out of confusion, to anchor unstable notions of value and truth, to shape outcomes by bending fortune to human will, and to assert control and possession in the face of disorder and dispossession. These forms and techniques are the subject of this dissertation, which departs from the thesis that, coded into each use of the term “fetish,” there is an interpretation of the shifting social circumstances that precipitated its fabrication and use. Part I, In the Marketplace, draws on Iberian and Caboverdean merchant treatises and descriptions to map the circulation, and creolization of the Iberian discourse of feitiçaria along the trading routes of West Africa, while collecting and interpreting the feitiços, fetiches, and fetishes that multiplied in its wake. Part II, Before the Holy Office, reverses course and tracks the Africanization of the problem of the feitiço (exemplified in the idiom of mandinga) in the trials of Cacheu-native Crispina Peres (in 1665–1669) and Cabo Verdean Patrício de Andrade (in 1690) for feitiçaria at the Lisbon Tribunal of the Inquisition. Each chapter is articulated around a different technique of feitiçaria—writing, metallurgy, ligature, and gleaning—its social importance, and its perceived effects. Ultimately, this study is built on the conviction that “the problem of the fetish” is best approached as a historical accumulation of problem objects, troubling forms that elicited accusations of fetish and that were thus subject to discursive attempts, both systematic and ad-hoc, to classify and serialize them into a corpus and a theory.

The central objective of this work is developing convenient general procedures for controlling the formation and stabilization of nanoscale transition metal particles. Contemporary interest in developing alternative synthetic approaches for producing nanoparticles arises in large part from expanding applications of the nanomaterials in areas such as catalysis, electronics and medicine. This research focuses on advancing the existing nanoparticle synthetic routes by using a new class of polymer colloid materials as a chemical approach, and the laser irradiation of metal salt solution as a photo-chemical method to attain size and shape selectivity. Controlled synthesis of small metal nanoparticles with sizes ranging from 1 to 5nm is still a continuing challenge in nanomaterial synthesis. This research utilizes a new class of polymer colloid materials as nano-reactors and protective agents for controlling the formation of small transition metal nanoparticles. The polymer colloid particles were formed from cross-linking of dinegatively charged metal precursors with partially protonated poly dimethylaminoethylmethacrylate (PDMAEMA). Incorporation of [PtCl6]2- species into the colloidal particles prior to the chemical reduction was effectively employed as a new strategy for synthesis of unusually small platinum nanoparticles with narrow size distributions (1.12 ± 0.25nm). To explore the generality of this approach, in a series of proof-of-concept studies, this method was successfully employed for the synthesis of small palladium (1.4 ±0.2nm) and copper nanoparticles (1.5 ±0.6nm). The polymer colloid materials developed in this research are pH responsive, and are designed to self-assemble and/or disassemble by varying the levels of protonation of the polymer chains. This unique feature was used to tune the size of palladium nanoparticles in a small range from 1nm to 5nm. The procedure presented in this work is a new convenient room temperature route for synthesis of small nanoparticles, and its application can be extended to the formation of other transition metals and alloy nanoparticles. This research also focuses on developing new photo-chemical routes for controlling the size and shape of the nanoparticles through high-intensity ultra-fast laser irradiation of metal salt solution. One of the core objectives of this work is to explore the special capabilities of shaped laser pulses in formation of metal nanoparticles through irradiation of the solutions by using simultaneous spatial and temporal focusing (SSTF). Femtosecond laser irradiation has not yet been widely applied for nanoparticle synthesis, and offers new regimes of energy deposition for synthesis of nanomaterials. Photo-reduction of aqueous [AuCl4]- solution to the gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) has been applied as a model process for optimizing the experimental procedures, and evaluating the potential of shaped laser pulses in the synthesis of AuNPs. Systematic manipulation of the laser parameters and experimental conditions provided effective strategies to control the size of Au nanoparticles in strong laser fields. Varying the concentration of polyethylene glycol (PEG45) as a surfactant effectively tuned the size of AuNPs from 3.9 ±0.7nm to 11.0 ±2.4nm, and significantly increased the rate of Au(III) reduction during irradiation. Comparative studies revealed the capability of shaped laser pulses in the generation of smaller and more uniform AuNPs (5.8 ±1.1nm) relative to the other conventional laser irradiation methods (7.2 ±2.9nm). Furthermore, a new laser-assisted approach has been developed for selective formation of triangular Au nanoplates in the absence of any surfactant molecule. This method relies on rapid energy deposition by using shaped, ultra-intense laser pulses to generate Au seeds in aqueous [AuCl4]- solution, and the slow post-irradiation reduction of un-reacted [AuCl4]- species by using H2O2 as a mild reducing agent. Variation of the laser irradiation-time was found as an effective strategy to tune the morphology of Au nanomaterials from nanospheres to triangular nanoplates. The surfactant-free Au nanoplates produced in this research can be readily functionalized with a variety of target molecules or surfactants for desirable applications such as biomedicine. The concept of rapid laser processing followed by in situ chemical reduction can be expanded as a general methodology for high-yield production of nanomaterials, and provides a series of new laser dependent parameters for controlling the nanoparticle formation. / Chemistry

The issues of performance measurement and efficiency analyses for transit industries have been gaining significance due to severe operating conditions and financial constraints in which these transit agencies provide service. In this research, we present an approach to measure the performance of Urban Transit Networks, specifically, bus routes that comprise the network. We propose a math programming model that evaluates the efficiencies of bus routes taking into consideration, the service providers, the users and the societal perspectives. This model is based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology and derives from Network Theory, Network Modeling in DEA, Goal Programming & Goal-DEA and 'Environmental' Variables. This approach enables the decision maker to determine the performance of its units of operations ('bus routes' in our case), optimally allocate scarce resources and achieve target levels for 'externality' variables for these bus routes and for the whole network. We further recommend modifications to the model, for adaptation to other modes of transportation as well as extend its applicability to other applications/scenarios. / Master of Science